Mount St. Mary’s Men’s Baseball played against the Wagner College Seahawks in a three game home series, in which the Mountaineers won the series two games to one. One of the highlights of that series was that of starting pitcher, Luke Pryor (C ‘23), who threw a complete game while only allowing one earned run, six hits and striking out six batters in the process of a 7-1 victory on April 2. For that performance, Pryor was awarded the NEC pitcher of the week. Pryor is the second Mount pitcher to win that award this season after Cooper Adams (C ‘22), who won the third and final game of the series and helped secure a series win for the Mountaineers in conference play.
Even though Pryor pitched a complete game, that did not mean there weren’t runners on base. Six hits and four walks allowed many opportunities for Wagner to have scoring opportunities, but with the defense at his back, Pryor felt confident on the mound. The junior then had more to say about his team: “I felt that I was able to do that because my defense played so great behind me. Every time they got someone on base it felt like the infield was rolling a double play for me and they just kept making amazing plays to get me out of innings.”
Pryor’s complete game marks the second complete game by a Mount pitcher in as many months, with Cooper Adams pitching a complete game against Georgetown on March 20. On the prospect of two of his pitchers being able to go long into games, Coach Frank Leoni said, "Both Luke and Cooper established command of their fastball early to set the tone. Both also did an excellent job of limiting freebies, so when they each gave up a long homerun, there was no one on base. Overall, they both competed very well. Whenever you can get a complete game, it obviously gives us a chance to win. We have confidence in all our guys, but we need quality starts to take stress off our relievers.”
This complete game while only allowing one run helped Pryor’s ERA shrink from 5.06 to 3.20 in the span of a game. On this, Pryor said, “It was important for us as a team to get a win and to get us rolling as far as ERA goes, I don’t really care about it I just want us to win and keep winning as a team and make a run at a NEC Championship.”
“When your pitcher can go long in games, that’s when your offense can really show up, “Pitching is the name of the game. If you pitch well, you have a chance to win. Our defense was remarkable in both of those starts and overall, as of late. If we minimize our opponents' chances to score, it bodes well for our team's success. Our offense has been feeding off our pitching and defense for sure,” Leoni added.
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